Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 10

10 Monday. Dec. 31. 1984 Philadelphia Dally Newi River May Conceal Murder Clues JOESDAti A Middle American Nightmare I II vV I I fcVr Mi Tl Ik I NK I r4l sfilr fc- 1 t' w-' jC -Ty1 EDITOR'S NOTE: An investigation into child molestation in the town of Jordan, became an issue of national interest earlier this year when 24 adults and one juvenile were indicted. A United Press International team visited Jordan during the holiday season.

Third of three parts By WILLIAM H. INMAN United Press International JORDAN, Minn. A dozen miles upstream from the ice-choked Mississippi, the Minnesota River flows dark, robust and swift. Buried in its waters may be the final chapter of a mystery whose elements have horrified a nation unresolved allegations of devil worship, of sex crimes against nature's most innocent, of ritual murder, of the bodies of children secretly slipped into a night-veiled river. But the investigation now appears to be paralyzed, and the sense of inaction reaches Minnesota's highest corridors of power.

Scott County investigators told UPI there is ample evidence that major sex crimes were committed by people other than James Rud, the frail, soft-spoken sex offender whose allegations opened the Jordan story. Charges now have been dropped against all other defendants, many of whom say there was never a case at all. Others say the real criminals never were caught. "Now nobody's safe," said attorney Barry Voss, one of the attorneys who A snowfall blankets the quiet town of Jordan, Minn. lease its secret file on the homicides, 126 pages of police interviews and notes.

This, despite official statements the murder allegations were unsubstantiated and no longer merited attention. The case has been quiescent since early November. Gordon Gelhaye, a retired sheriff's deputy, recalls the morning his role in the murder search ended. He had gathered with other volunteers near the Scott County courthouse to organize large-scale dragging operations the following day. "We had six boats, all the equipment we needed," said Gelhaye, the county's river-dragging expert.

"Suddenly the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension) agent made a call, and said it was all off. We could go home. Who was I to disagree? It was their baby." The arguments for dragging were credible to Gelhaye because some of the bodies if, indeed, there were bodies were said to be shielded against the elements. "The story we were told was that one body had been placed in a garbage can. It was weighted down with rocks and the cover was tied down.

The body would certainly survive." Another body, a child said, had been wrapped in heavy canvas. Descriptions of the alleged murder victims were fairly detailed. Several interview sessions were videotaped, UPI has learned, although copies of the tapes never have been released. The children talked about three to six bodies. Reports of the killings were interwoven with stories of sex parties in which animals were ritual-ly slaughtered in a form of devil worship.

One of the humans sacrificed, according to a sworn statement, wore an Iowa baseball cap, not unlike a cap worn by one of two young newspaper carriers reported missing last year in Des Moines. Other descriptions matched those of some of Chicago's missing children 26 unaccounted for last year. No firm links, however, were established to the Chicago or Des Moines cases. Psychologist Susan Phipps-Yona said she found the children's stories of sex slayings "very persuasive." "There is enough consistency in the details of the stories to make one believe things they describe really did happen," she said. Even BCA chief Jack Erskine agreed: "These kids have seen something.

What it is, we are not sure of. It's not just a bunch of kids getting together and fabricating a story." When the homicide allegations first surfaced in July, Scott County sheriff's investigators assigned a special crime scene unit. At one point, deputies dressed as fishermen and walked the banks of the Minnesota in hopes of catching a killer returning to the scene. Attorneys defending Donald sheriffs deputy, and his wife learned of the county's homicide investigation and demanded the secret files be relinquished. Prosecutor Kathleen Morris balked, insisting the files were not germane.

Buchan never was a murder suspect. See JORDAN Next Page successfully defended the only couple to come to trial in the case. "The bad guys are still out there." UPI interviewed prosecutors, convicted felons and special investigators and examined police files and court transcripts to determine the scope and current status of the government's case. The findings were disturbing: FBI and state investigators never dragged the Minnesota River, standard procedure in lesser cases and the only means of gaining evidence corroborating murder allegations. Last month the state's Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, at the behest of Attorney General Hubert "Skip" Humphrey III, said it was abandoning the murder investigation after four weeks scarcely time to review files from the county prosecutor's office.

Government agents, have failed to turn up a shred of hard evidence of child pornography, a focus of their current investigation. No grand jury ever has been convened or proposed in the homicide investigation even though the murder investigation was cited as the reason for dismissing sex abuse charges against 21 adults. The government refuses to re- ft Unifax James Rud: "impulses" the same vast trailer park, on child sex abuse charges. "That's what did me in. When I knew what I had done to my family, I wanted to kill myself." In September, Rud failed to identify Robert Bentz, one of the people he had accused, in what was meant to be the first in a long string of sex-abuse trials.

Rud's testimony was ordered discounted. Bentz and his wife were acquitted by a jury. In October, Rud confessed he had concocted most of the stories. Morris dropped charges against all defendants at roughly the same time. She said the murder investigation would be jeopardized otherwise.

"Now I'm more relaxed with myself," Rud said. "I know 1 won't have to lie my way through the trials." By WILLIAM H. INMAN United Press International SHAKOPEE, Minn. Convicted felon James John Rud, whose confessions launched and deflated the Jordan sex ring case, fears only one man James John Rud. "There's more than one Jim Rud," said the 27-year-old recluse, squirming uneasily in a bulletproof booth reserved for jail interviews.

Rud 'doesn't grant many interviews. Words get him in trouble. "Sometimes, that other person tries to take over. I have these terrible impulses," he said. The dark impulses come in the night.

They haunt him: They grow stronger in the presence of children. "I've got to keep myself separated Ifrom children until I can trust myself again around them," he said, his voice crackling eerily from an electronic speaker. "I guess 1 was rejected too often by adult females." He offers no elaboration. Rud measures his words. His lawyer told him to be careful, not to say anything that might hurt him when he is sentenced Jan.

18. Rud faces up to 73 months in prison on 10 counts of first-degree sex offenses against children. "Right now I wish it were all over with. It's been emotionally trying on a lot of people, including myself," he said. "I'm the only sex offender I know of.

If there are others, I don't know about them. I want it all to be over soon." Rud expects to be released within a year or two, especially if he agrees to psychiatric treatment. "I don't feel like doing much of anything these days, at least not until this business is settled." He fidgets with his glasses. "I feel I've been through enough." Rud's torment began in October of 1983 with an investigation that grew to shock the nation. A woman in a Jordan, trailer park told police her neighbor a garbage collector had sexually abused her 9-year-old daughter.

Police believed the 'woman. The neighbor, Rud, had a record. Twice he'd been convicted of child molesting once in Apple Valley, once in Norfolk, Va. "I thought 1 was going to be treated like I was the last time, 90 days in jail and released," he said. But the prosecutor was different this time.

Kathleen Morris had established a national reputation for her gutsy, successful prosecution of a family of child pornographers, the Cermaks, a year before Rud's arrest. She'd even set up a special team to investigate exactly the type of crime Rud was accused of. She charged him with more than 100 sex offenses. Rud was terrified by the prospect of a long jail term and promised Morris cooperation in her investigation if she helped reduce the counts. She did.

"In a way I felt pressure to fabricate. The sentencing was the main thing. I felt I had to please Morris. I was not telling the truth at the time of the original confession). Even then, I could see she I Morris had gotten too emotionally involved in the case.

"But I didn't expect everything to go on so long or get so big." Based on Rud's statements, 23 adults and one juvenile were implicated, including Rud's closest friends and relatives. Nearly 40 child wit-nesses were interviewed. Some corroborated Rud's claims. Some went further. One boy said Rud sold pictures to pornographers and threatened him with poisonous rattlesnakes.

"I laughed and laughed when I heard that," Rud said. Soon the investigation turned nightmarish. Informants described parties at which children were ritu-ally butchered and thrown into the Minnesota River. Rud said he does not believe those accusations. He was never implicated in the murder investigation.

In the spring of 1984, authorities arrested Rud's parents, who lived in.